OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
SCMA Codebook Design
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

Multicarrier CDMA is a multiple access scheme in which modulated QAM symbols are spread over OFDMA tones by using a generally complex spreading sequence. Effectively, a QAM symbol is repeated over multiple tones. Low density signature (LDS) is a version of CDMA with low density spreading sequences allowing us to take advantage of a near optimal message passing algorithm (MPA) receiver with practically feasible complexity. Sparse code multiple access (SCMA) is a multi-dimensional codebook-based non-orthogonal spreading technique. In SCMA, the procedure of bit to QAM symbol mapping and spreading are combined together and incoming bits are directly mapped to multi-dimensional codewords of SCMA codebook sets. Each layer has its dedicated codebook. Shaping gain of a multi-dimensional constellation is one of the main sources of the performance improvement in comparison to the simple repetition of QAM symbols in LDS. Meanwhile, like LDS, SCMA enjoys the low complexity reception techniques due to the sparsity of SCMA codewords. In this paper a systematic approach is proposed to design SCMA codebooks mainly based on the design principles of lattice constellations. Simulation results are presented to show the performance gain of SCMA compared to LDS and OFDMA.
Managing your Private and Public Data: Bringing down Inference Attacks against your Privacy
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

We propose a practical methodology to protect a user's private data, when he wishes to publicly release data that is correlated with his private data, in the hope of getting some utility. Our approach relies on a general statistical inference framework that captures the privacy threat under inference attacks, given utility constraints. Under this framework, data is distorted before it is released, according to a privacy-preserving probabilistic mapping. This mapping is obtained by solving a convex optimization problem, which minimizes information leakage under a distortion constraint. We address practical challenges encountered when applying this theoretical framework to real world data. On one hand, the design of optimal privacy-preserving mechanisms requires knowledge of the prior distribution linking private data and data to be released, which is often unavailable in practice. On the other hand, the optimization may become untractable and face scalability issues when data assumes values in large size alphabets, or is high dimensional. Our work makes three major contributions. First, we provide bounds on the impact on the privacy-utility tradeoff of a mismatched prior. Second, we show how to reduce the optimization size by introducing a quantization step, and how to generate privacy mappings under quantization. Third, we evaluate our method on three datasets, including a new dataset that we collected, showing correlations between political convictions and TV viewing habits. We demonstrate that good privacy properties can be achieved with limited distortion so as not to undermine the original purpose of the publicly released data, e.g. recommendations.
Robust 3D face recognition in presence of pose and partial occlusions or missing parts
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we propose a robust 3D face recognition system which can handle pose as well as occlusions in real world. The system at first takes as input, a 3D range image, simultaneously registers it using ICP(Iterative Closest Point) algorithm. ICP used in this work, registers facial surfaces to a common model by minimizing distances between a probe model and a gallery model. However the performance of ICP relies heavily on the initial conditions. Hence, it is necessary to provide an initial registration, which will be improved iteratively and finally converge to the best alignment possible. Once the faces are registered, the occlusions are automatically extracted by thresholding the depth map values of the 3D image. After the occluded regions are detected, restoration is done by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The restored images, after the removal of occlusions, are then fed to the recognition system for classification purpose. Features are extracted from the reconstructed non-occluded face images in the form of face normals. The experimental results which were obtained on the occluded facial images from the Bosphorus 3D face database, illustrate that our occlusion compensation scheme has attained a recognition accuracy of 91.30%.
Real-time emotion recognition for gaming using deep convolutional network features
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

The goal of the present study is to explore the application of deep convolutional network features to emotion recognition. Results indicate that they perform similarly to other published models at a best recognition rate of 94.4%, and do so with a single still image rather than a video stream. An implementation of an affective feedback game is also described, where a classifier using these features tracks the facial expressions of a player in real-time.
Capacity Bounds and a Certain Capacity Region for Special Three-Receiver Broadcast Channels with Side Information
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

The fact that the results for 2-receiver broadcast channels (BCs) are not generalized to the 3-receiver ones is of information theoretical importance. In this paper we study two classes of discrete memoryless BCs with non-causal side information (SI), i.e. multilevel BC (MBC) and 3-receiver less noisy BC. First, we obtain an achievable rate region and a capacity outer bound for the MBC. Second, we prove a special capacity region for the 3-receiver less noisy BC. Third, the obtained special capacity region for the 3-receiver less noisy BC is extended to continuous alphabet fading Gaussian version. It is worth mentioning that the previous works are special cases of our works.
Turbo Compressed Sensing with Partial DFT Sensing Matrix
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In this letter, we propose a turbo compressed sensing algorithm with partial discrete Fourier transform (DFT) sensing matrices. Interestingly, the state evolution of the proposed algorithm is shown to be consistent with that derived using the replica method. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the well-known approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm when a partial DFT sensing matrix is involved.
Arithmetic Distribution Matching
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In this work, arithmetic distribution matching (ADM) is presented. ADM invertibly transforms a discrete memoryless source (DMS) into a target DMS. ADM can be used for probabilistic shaping and for rate adaption. Opposed to existing algorithms for distribution matching, ADM works online and can transform arbitrarily long input sequences. It is shown analytically that as the input length tends to infinity, the ADM output perfectly emulates the target DMS with respect to the normalized informational divergence and the entropy rate. Numerical results are presented that confirm the analytical bounds.
Ancilla-free synthesis of large reversible functions using binary decision diagrams
Venue: arXiv cs.ET 2014
Year: 2014

The synthesis of reversible functions has been an intensively studied research area in the last decade. Since almost all proposed approaches rely on representations of exponential size (such as truth tables and permutations), they cannot be applied efficiently to reversible functions with more than 15 variables. In this paper, we propose an ancilla-free synthesis approach based on Young subgroups using symbolic function representations that can efficiently be implemented with binary decision diagrams (BDDs). As a result, the algorithm not only allows to synthesize large reversible functions without adding extra lines, called ancilla, but also leads to significantly smaller circuits compared to existing approaches.
Offline Signature-Based Fuzzy Vault (OSFV: Review and New Results
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

An offline signature-based fuzzy vault (OSFV) is a bio-cryptographic implementation that uses handwritten signature images as biometrics instead of traditional passwords to secure private cryptographic keys. Having a reliable OSFV implementation is the first step towards automating financial and legal authentication processes, as it provides greater security of confidential documents by means of the embedded handwritten signatures. The authors have recently proposed the first OSFV implementation which is reviewed in this paper. In this system, a machine learning approach based on the dissimilarity representation concept is employed to select a reliable feature representation adapted for the fuzzy vault scheme. Some variants of this system are proposed for enhanced accuracy and security. In particular, a new method that adapts user key size is presented. Performance of proposed methods are compared using the Brazilian PUCPR and GPDS signature databases and results indicate that the key-size adaptation method achieves a good compromise between security and accuracy. While average system entropy is increased from 45-bits to about 51-bits, the AER (average error rate) is decreased by about 21%.
A strengthened entropy power inequality for log-concave densities
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

We show that Shannon's entropy--power inequality admits a strengthened version in the case in which the densities are log-concave. In such a case, in fact, one can extend the Blachman--Stam argument to obtain a sharp inequality for the second derivative of Shannon's entropy functional with respect to the heat semigroup.
Brain: Biological noise-based logic
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

Neural spikes in the brain form stochastic sequences, i.e., belong to the class of pulse noises. This stochasticity is a counterintuitive feature because extracting information - such as the commonly supposed neural information of mean spike frequency - requires long times for reasonably low error probability. The mystery could be solved by noise-based logic, wherein randomness has an important function and allows large speed enhancements for special-purpose tasks, and the same mechanism is at work for the brain logic version of this concept.
Ameliorate Threshold Distributed Energy Efficient Clustering Algorithm for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2014
Year: 2014

Ameliorating the lifetime in heterogeneous wireless sensor network is an important task because the sensor nodes are limited in the resource energy. The best way to improve a WSN lifetime is the clustering based algorithms in which each cluster is managed by a leader called Cluster Head. Each other node must communicate with this CH to send the data sensing. The nearest base station nodes must also send their data to their leaders, this causes a loss of energy. In this paper, we propose a new approach to ameliorate a threshold distributed energy efficient clustering protocol for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks by excluding closest nodes to the base station in the clustering process. We show by simulation in MATLAB that the proposed approach increases obviously the number of the received packet messages and prolongs the lifetime of the network compared to TDEEC protocol.
A Price Selective Centralized Algorithm for Resource Allocation with Carrier Aggregation in LTE Cellular Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we consider a resource allocation with carrier aggregation optimization problem in long term evolution (LTE) cellular networks. In our proposed model, users are running elastic or inelastic traffic. Each user equipment (UE) is assigned an application utility function based on the type of its application. Our objective is to allocate multiple carriers resources optimally among users in their coverage area while giving the user the ability to select one of the carriers to be its primary carrier and the others to be its secondary carriers. The UE's decision is based on the carrier price per unit bandwidth. We present a price selective centralized resource allocation with carrier aggregation algorithm to allocate multiple carriers resources optimally among users while providing a minimum price for the allocated resources. In addition, we analyze the convergence of the algorithm with different carriers rates. Finally, we present simulation results for the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Closed-Form Delay-Optimal Power Control for Energy Harvesting Wireless System with Finite Energy Storage
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we consider delay-optimal power control for an energy harvesting wireless system with finite energy storage. The wireless system is powered solely by a renewable energy source with bursty data arrivals, and is characterized by a data queue and an energy queue. We consider a delay-optimal power control problem and formulate an infinite horizon average cost Markov Decision Process (MDP). To deal with the curse of dimensionality, we introduce a virtual continuous time system and derive closed-form approximate priority functions for the discrete time MDP at various operating regimes. Based on the approximation, we obtain an online power control solution which is adaptive to the channel state information as well as the data and energy queue state information. The derived power control solution has a multi-level water-filling structure, where the water level is determined jointly by the data and energy queue lengths. We show through simulations that the proposed scheme has significant performance gain compared with various baselines.
Can Artificial Neural Networks be Applied in Seismic Predicition? Preliminary Analysis Applying Radial Topology. Case: Mexico
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

Tectonic earthquakes of high magnitude can cause considerable losses in terms of human lives, economic and infrastructure, among others. According to an evaluation published by the U.S. Geological Survey, 30 is the number of earthquakes which have greatly impacted Mexico from the end of the XIX century to this one. Based upon data from the National Seismological Service, on the period between January 1, 2006 and May 1, 2013 there have occurred 5,826 earthquakes which magnitude has been greater than 4.0 degrees on the Richter magnitude scale (25.54% of the total of earthquakes registered on the national territory), being the Pacific Plate and the Cocos Plate the most important ones. This document describes the development of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based on the radial topology which seeks to generate a prediction with an error margin lower than 20% which can inform about the probability of a future earthquake one of the main questions is: can artificial neural networks be applied in seismic forecasting? It can be argued that research has the potential to bring in the forecast seismic, more research is needed to consolidate data and help mitigate the impact caused by such events linked with society. Keywords--- Analysis, Mexico, Neural Artificial Networks, Seismicity.
Enhancing the Accuracy of Device-free Localization Using Spectral Properties of the RSS
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2014
Year: 2014

Received signal strength based device-free localization has attracted considerable attention in the research society over the past years to locate and track people who are not carrying any electronic device. Typically, the person is localized using a spatial model that relates the time domain signal strength measurements to the person's position. Alternatively, one could exploit spectral properties of the received signal strength which reflects the rate at which the wireless propagation medium is being altered, an opportunity that has not been exploited in the related literature. In this paper, the power spectral density of the signal strength measurements are related to the person's position and velocity to augment the particle filter based tracking algorithm with an additional measurement. The system performance is evaluated using simulations and validated using experimental data. Compared to a system relying solely on time domain measurements, the results suggest that the robustness to parameter changes is increased while the tracking accuracy is enhanced by 50% or more when 512 particles are used.
Quantified Conjunctive Queries on Partially Ordered Sets
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2014
Year: 2014

We study the computational problem of checking whether a quantified conjunctive query (a first-order sentence built using only conjunction as Boolean connective) is true in a finite poset (a reflexive, antisymmetric, and transitive directed graph). We prove that the problem is already NP-hard on a certain fixed poset, and investigate structural properties of posets yielding fixed-parameter tractability when the problem is parameterized by the query. Our main algorithmic result is that model checking quantified conjunctive queries on posets of bounded width is fixed-parameter tractable (the width of a poset is the maximum size of a subset of pairwise incomparable elements). We complement our algorithmic result by complexity results with respect to classes of finite posets in a hierarchy of natural poset invariants, establishing its tightness in this sense.
What makes an Image Iconic? A Fine-Grained Case Study
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

A natural approach to teaching a visual concept, e.g. a bird species, is to show relevant images. However, not all relevant images represent a concept equally well. In other words, they are not necessarily iconic. This observation raises three questions. Is iconicity a subjective property? If not, can we predict iconicity? And what exactly makes an image iconic? We provide answers to these questions through an extensive experimental study on a challenging fine-grained dataset of birds. We first show that iconicity ratings are consistent across individuals, even when they are not domain experts, thus demonstrating that iconicity is not purely subjective. We then consider an exhaustive list of properties that are intuitively related to iconicity and measure their correlation with these iconicity ratings. We combine them to predict iconicity of new unseen images. We also propose a direct iconicity predictor that is discriminatively trained with iconicity ratings. By combining both systems, we get an iconicity prediction that approaches human performance.
Controlled Sensing: A Myopic Fisher Information Sensor Selection Algorithm
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2014
Year: 2014

This paper considers the problem of state tracking with observation control for a particular class of dynamical systems. The system state evolution is described by a discrete-time, finite-state Markov chain, while the measurement process is characterized by a controlled multi-variate Gaussian observation model. The computational complexity of the optimal control strategy proposed in our prior work proves to be prohibitive. A suboptimal, lower complexity algorithm based on the Fisher information measure is proposed. Toward this end, the preceding measure is generalized to account for multi-valued discrete parameters and control inputs. A closed-form formula for our system model is also derived. Numerical simulations are provided for a physical activity tracking application showing the near-optimal performance of the proposed algorithm.
A simple, distance-dependent formulation of the Watts-Strogatz model for directed and undirected small-world networks
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2014
Year: 2014

Small-world networks---complex networks characterized by a combination of high clustering and short path lengths---are widely studied using the paradigmatic model of Watts and Strogatz (WS). Although the WS model is already quite minimal and intuitive, we describe an alternative formulation of the WS model in terms of a distance-dependent probability of connection that further simplifies, both practically and theoretically, the generation of directed and undirected WS-type small-world networks. In addition to highlighting an essential feature of the WS model that has previously been overlooked, this alternative formulation makes it possible to derive exact expressions for quantities such as the degree and motif distributions and global clustering coefficient for both directed and undirected networks in terms of model parameters.
Enhanced Estimation of Autoregressive Wind Power Prediction Model Using Constriction Factor Particle Swarm Optimization
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2014
Year: 2014

Accurate forecasting is important for cost-effective and efficient monitoring and control of the renewable energy based power generation. Wind based power is one of the most difficult energy to predict accurately, due to the widely varying and unpredictable nature of wind energy. Although Autoregressive (AR) techniques have been widely used to create wind power models, they have shown limited accuracy in forecasting, as well as difficulty in determining the correct parameters for an optimized AR model. In this paper, Constriction Factor Particle Swarm Optimization (CF-PSO) is employed to optimally determine the parameters of an Autoregressive (AR) model for accurate prediction of the wind power output behaviour. Appropriate lag order of the proposed model is selected based on Akaike information criterion. The performance of the proposed PSO based AR model is compared with four well-established approaches; Forward-backward approach, Geometric lattice approach, Least-squares approach and Yule-Walker approach, that are widely used for error minimization of the AR model. To validate the proposed approach, real-life wind power data of \textit{Capital Wind Farm} was obtained from Australian Energy Market Operator. Experimental evaluation based on a number of different datasets demonstrate that the performance of the AR model is significantly improved compared with benchmark methods.
Detection and Estimation Algorithms in Massive MIMO Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

This book chapter reviews signal detection and parameter estimation techniques for multiuser multiple-antenna wireless systems with a very large number of antennas, known as massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. We consider both centralized antenna systems (CAS) and distributed antenna systems (DAS) architectures in which a large number of antenna elements are employed and focus on the uplink of a mobile cellular system. In particular, we focus on receive processing techniques that include signal detection and parameter estimation problems and discuss the specific needs of massive MIMO systems. Simulation results illustrate the performance of detection and estimation algorithms under several scenarios of interest. Key problems are discussed and future trends in massive MIMO systems are pointed out.
Offloading MPI Parallel Prefix Scan (MPI_Scan) with the NetFPGA
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2014
Year: 2014

Parallel programs written using the standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) frequently depend upon the ability to efficiently execute collective operations. MPI_Scan is a collective operation defined in MPI that implements parallel prefix scan which is very useful primitive operation in several parallel applications. This operation can be very time consuming. In this paper, we explore the use of hardware programmable network interface cards utilizing standard media access protocols for offloading the MPI_Scan operation to the underlying network. Our work is based upon the NetFPGA - a programmable network interface with an on-board Virtex FPGA and four Ethernet interfaces. We have implemented a network-level MPI_Scan operation using the NetFPGA for use in MPI environments. This paper compares the performance of this implementation with MPI over Ethernet for a small configuration.